The present invention relates to a method of broadcasting multimedia information items, a receiver of multimedia information items broadcast by means of the method, and a user interface for consulting the information items.
The load on high bit rate broadcast networks is known to be very unevenly distributed through the day.
At busy times, the network is saturated and offers only a limited bit rate for each user, and so response times are relatively long.
At slack times, in particular during the night, from midnight to 8 a.m., the network is very significantly underused.
These disparities in the use of the network are disadvantageous both for users and for the network operator. It takes too long for users to obtain the data they require, and users also pay for a service that frequently fails to achieve the required quality in terms of speed and availability during the daytime.
To enhance the quality of service provided during the daytime, operators install high capacity network infrastructures that are significantly underused at slack times, which implies a significant loss of potential profit for the operators.
Also, it is known that a significant proportion of the data of interest to users concerns various aspects of current affairs, for example finance, economics and sports.
This type of information is made up of information items that are generally of interest to a large number of users and network saturation problems arise because the same information is sent several times to different users, generally during the daytime, usually at slack times.
Smoothing the load on the network would increase its availability during periods of high use without necessitating any increase in its capacity.
The present invention addresses this objective.
The present invention provides a method of broadcasting multimedia information items in a network comprising a transmitter and at least one receiver of information, the method consisting of:                determining a class to which each information item belongs in accordance with a predetermined classification,        broadcasting ahead of time a descriptor relating to each information item characterizing the class to which the information item belongs,        in each receiver, qualifying on the basis of the descriptors received the potential interest of each information item as a function of a user profile defined in the receiver,        broadcasting the information items associated with the descriptors previously broadcast, and        in each receiver, locally storing each information item as a function of the qualification based on the descriptors.        